Trashing World Records

[donley2]

One of the valid points I thought that was raised in the now deleted thread was the subject of doing something about current world records. Mandy presented the thought of new world records post 1990. GH himself actually had the idea of new world records starting with 2000. How do others feel about these ideas. I am absolutely in favor of trashing world records and restarting at some point in time. Personally I think the time to do it is when we start saving samples from all world record performances (this would obviously mean sometime in the future) so that they could be retested with newer tests and newer test technology.

[tafnut]

Re: Trashing World Records

I like the idea of tissue/blood sampling and saving it, but then we have Damocles' sword over our heads forever. You could have a WR for 20 years before it was found dirty. That is NOT a viable solution, but the idea of deterence is a good one. We would have to go to system that would give a statute of limitations, say OG-to-OG. If you get through one Olympiade clean, you're good to go.

[gh]

Re: Trashing World Records

I can't take credit for the "millenium records" concept: that was floated to the IAAF by the German federation as I recall. It is, however, an idea I wholly endorse. Or rather, endorsed. Sadly, the window is now gone and would be a very tough sell to the public.

I think having a set of "new millenium records" is somethig that could have been sold if it had been spun right. And, as we've seen from the recasting of the javelin specs, etc., the public has a pretty short attention span as to what constitutes a "real" WR. It's only the deep hard core of statistical nuts who really care about the wiping out of all-time list kind of things.

And guess what, I'm one of those nuts! But--and call me the ultimate spinmeister if you will--if the sport is to move forward and retain any credibility it has to have ongoing World Record action, much as I appreciate head-to-head combat more than I do record assaults.

And I fear we're due for a pretty long drought in the WR department.

[Jon]

Re: Trashing World Records

I agree with the person who said that things would get very messyif it did happen. The IAAF would have to find some sort of land-mark thing as an excuse to do it and, IMO, they've already missed their chance (they should have done it when random testing was introduced). Unless there's going to be another shift in rules that would change the face of T&F forever, then ditching a load of old world records wouldn't exactly be fair.

If they were to restart the record books from when HGH tests are introduced, would it be an insinuation that all/most athletes competing before the HGH tests, were guilty of something? If not, then why delete their world records when they've worked just as hard for their records as anyone else has?

Obviously, things could get really messy if something like this went ahead. Even if it did, fans would still look at the "old" WRs and compare them to the current athletes. Would you completely dismiss the "old" WRs just because the record books stop listing them? I know I wouldn't.

[Jon]

Re: Trashing World Records

>And I fear we're due for a pretty long drought in the WR department.



There's been a combined total of 13 WRs this year. Six of them were from the women's PV alone, but another six of them were from pretty established events (men's 5k, 10k, 3kSC, 110mH, 50kmW & women's 5k). With the inclusion of women's steeple into the major champs next year, then we should be set up for several WRs each year for a good while (from both women's steeple and women's PV). OK, these might not be as exciting as, say, a men's 100m WR being broken, but the WR progression will still be there.

Once it starts waning to 0-1 WRs a year, that's what I call a drought.

[gh]

Re: Trashing World Records

Sorry, WRs in events that are new from the ground up don't cut it.

[Jon]

Re: Trashing World Records

>Sorry, WRs in events that are new from the ground up don't cut it.



OK, so we still have 6 WRs from this season in established events. WRs which, last season, not many would have predicted to be broken (men's 5k, 10k, 110mH, women's 5k). There's still plenty of scope for 'surprise' WRs for the next few years at least.

[doug0914]

Re: Trashing World Records

world records before 2000 should not be scratched, we know there have been cheats since, and unfortunateley there probably always will be, as the balco/thg crises emerged. i am sure there are people who said okay they can detect some things, lets find another way to cheat.

[eldrick]

Re: Trashing World Records

>>OK,
>so we still have 6 WRs from this season in established events. WRs which, last
>season, not many would have predicted to be broken (men's 5k, 10k, 110mH,
>women's 5k). There's still plenty of scope for 'surprise' WRs for the next few
>years at least.<

err...

there were some of us who were predicting that the 5kM, 10kM & 5kW were going to go !

[Jon]

Re: Trashing World Records

>there were some of us who were
>predicting that the 5kM, 10kM & 5kW were going to go !




And some were also predicting a 9.80 from Asafa to win the OG title....

[Runninghorse]

Re: Trashing World Records

If you were one of those world record holders, would such a pathetic topic even be entertained in your circle? The idea is dumb to the extreme.

[eldrick]

Re: Trashing World Records

>>And some were also predicting a 9.80 from Asafa to win
>the OG title....<

yes, i stick by that

of course i made no mention of athens

you should have known i was talking about bejing

[RMc]

Re: Trashing World Records

>world records before 2000 should not be scratched, we know there have been
>cheats since, and unfortunateley there probably always will be, as the
>balco/thg crises emerged. i am sure there are people who said okay they can
>detect some things, lets find another way to cheat.

It's the magnitude of cheating that's key here. Yes, a few cheat, and a number are caught each year. But we don't have virtually the entire group of elite athletes from certain nations cheating en masse, as we now have evidence of. It's quite obvious from looking at the women's and the men's shot and discus top 10 lists that those on those lists pre 1990 generally were using drugs based on subsequent evidence. And there are few on those top 10 lists from after 1990.

Unfortanetly, I agree with GH that the opportunity to reset the WRs easily has passed. The only way now would be for the IAAF to admit that many of its member nations were cheating as government policy, and that the only fair approach would be to drop all WRs set before some particular date.

[paulthefan]

Re: Trashing World Records

WRs are interesting.. in the same way that obscure baseball statistics are interesting. Every race is unique , every year unique , every title is unique... better to win than to break.

[donley2]

Re: Trashing World Records

To help illustrate the "problem" of records not being broken I put to together some actual numbers for what I consider the "core" mens track and field events (that means no walks, or marathon) and I left out the Javelin due to the implement change.

Here are the numbers since 1980 in 5 year increments
80-84 85-89 90-94 95-99 00-04
100 1 1 3 2 1
200 0 0 0 2 0
400 0 1 0 1 0
800 1 0 0 3 0
1500 3 2 1 2 0
5000 2 2 1 5 1
10000 1 1 3 5 1
110h 1 1 1 0 1
400h 2 0 1 0 0
steeple 0 1 1 3 2
4x100 2 0 5 0 0
4x400 0 1 2 1 0
HJ 6 5 1 0 0
PV 13 5 8 0 0
LJ 0 0 1 0 0
TJ 0 1 0 2 0
SP 1 6 1 0 0
DT 1 1 0 0 0
HT 8 2 0 0 0
Deca 8 0 1 1 1
Totals 50 30 30 27 7



Notice the precipitous drop after 2000. I almost would like to see a chart of "truly" random out of competition tests of world class athletes plotted versus this chart. I would suspect a very definite relationship.

Edited to add the SP